Shae and I have been traveling full-time for just over a year, having set off on our 5 year, 50 state road trip on January 1, 2018.
One of the questions we’re asked most frequently (after “Are you traveling in an RV?”) is “How are you paying for it?”
It’s a completely understandable question. Full-time travel is the dream of many people and we’re lucky enough to be doing it (although it’s not all sunset Instagram shots!)
I’ve touched on the subject of our income on our About Us page, but thought I’d go into a bit more detail seeing as it’s something people are obviously interested in.
Just to be clear – this post isn’t meant to be a humblebrag or some way of showing off. Instead, I’m hoping it inspires you and gives you some ideas of what you can achieve. I’m a regular guy who simply learned what I need to know by doing research online, reading books and listening to relevant podcasts. I self-taught myself how to create websites and resources that now provide a sufficient income for us to travel full-time.
We’re not rich by any stretch of the imagination, although we’re clearly more fortunate than the majority of people worldwide. Shae and I are well aware that we’re in a privileged position, but we’ve still had to work hard at a ton of different side hustles to have this opportunity. Despite all that hard work though, laziness has also played a small part in my decision to write this post as I can now point people towards it if they want to know more 😉
We have all kinds of income streams, so here’s a list of all the ways we make money. All of these are done online which is one of the main reasons we can travel full-time. I don’t have to be based somewhere in particular for work – all I need is an internet connection and I’m good.
1) Resource Websites
About 8 years ago, Shae and I started our first website called Youth Workin’ It. Shae was a professional youth worker and I did it in my spare time. We blogged nearly every day for a couple of years, providing free session plans, game ideas, fundraisers, etc.
Early on, some of our most popular posts were scavenger hunt ideas. Rather than putting the YWI focus on that, I created a brand new website with hundreds of scavenger hunt ideas.
Some of the most popular posts from that website proved to be scavenger hunt riddles. As a result, I created a brand new website called Riddles For Kids. Over the course of several years, I wrote more than a thousand riddles for kids. All those were riddles I crafted myself, rather than simply publishing riddles other people had written.
I discovered I loved creating resources like those (that’s one reason I enjoy blogging here on No Home Just Roam so much), so I made some additional websites. One was called Homophone List which I figured teachers and homeschool parents might find useful when teaching their kids about homophones, along with anyone else searching online for specific homophones. In addition to providing a list of homophones, I wrote some quizzes, riddles, jokes, created free printable worksheets and more.
The aim with all my sites has been to provide the maximum value I can, with nearly all resources being free.
Resource Website Income Streams
These websites are all still running and don’t require much upkeep, other than paying for domain name and hosting fees each year. They all earn an income in a couple of ways. The primary method is Google AdSense ads. I earn a teenie amount for each page someone views and earn a little more if someone actually click on one of those ads.
The second method is Amazon Associates. In some cases, posts I wrote linked to a product I mentioned on Amazon. If someone clicks that link and buys something on Amazon, I earn a small percentage of whatever they spend. This used to be more lucrative, but a couple of years ago Amazon changed the Associates scheme which resulted in lower earnings.
2) Book List Websites
A few months after starting Youth Workin’ It, I bought a .com domain name which was an author’s name and his new book title. At the time, Google tended to rank exact match domain names highly, so I figured people would search for his book, click through to my website and some would then go on to click through to Amazon and buy the book.
(n.b. ‘Exact match domain names’ are where a domain name exactly matches somebody’s search term. For example, if somebody searched for ‘James Patterson Invisible’, the domain name ‘jamespattersoninvisible.com’ is an ‘exact match domain name’. These used to rank highly in Google regardless of how useful the content was, but don’t anymore unless the website content is worthwhile.)
I only earned a dollar or two from that first website, but it gave me the encouragement to continue. I built several similar websites before realizing they had a short shelf-life. People would do a search for something like ‘James Patterson Invisible’ when the book first came out, but not so much after. Even if Google hadn’t changed how they ranked websites, the traffic to them wouldn’t have been great after the book’s release.
That’s when I hit on an idea. Rather than creating a website about one sole book, why not create one based on all of an author’s books.
So that’s what I did. I bought half a dozen domain names relating to different authors and set to work. I created James Patterson Book List, Lee Child Book List, Sandra Brown Book List, Michael Connelly Book List and dozens more over the course of a few years.
My aim was to create these sites as a one-stop-shop for everything you’d need to know about an author’s books. The websites have pages for every book they’ve ever written and advise what series they’re part of, the date they were published, a description of the book, etc.
There are then separate pages listing all the author’s books in order, as well as all the books in every series in order. It’s those types of pages in particular that seem to be most useful for readers as they want to know in which order they should read an author’s books.
Unlike the resource websites, these book list sites require some work on an ongoing basis. That’s because they have to be updated whenever the author releases a new book. I also have email lists for most of them where I send emails advising when new books are published.
Book List Website Income Streams
The income streams for my book list websites are the same as the resource sites. They have AdSense ad units which earn an OK amount. Seeing as the sites are all about books, quite a few people click through and buy the books on Amazon. Like I mentioned earlier, Amazon’s changes a couple of years ago to the commissions they pay drastically dropped how much I earn this way.
3) Books
Yep, I’m an author, albeit self-published. Amazon makes it pretty easy to self-publish books and it doesn’t cost you anything. They print on-demand and mail the books themselves, so I incur zero expenses and earn royalties on each sale.
The books are largely based on resources I created on the resource websites mentioned above. Some of them sell better than others, with the 501 Would You Rather Questions book generating about 90% of my sales.
Here’s a list of the books I’ve published in case you’re interested:
- 501 Would You Rather Questions
- 101 What Am I? Riddles – Vol. 1
- 101 What Am I? Riddles – Vol. 2
- 250 Rhyming Riddles For Kids
- 52 Scavenger Hunt Ideas
- How To Plan A Youth Retreat
Book Income Streams
The source of income from these books is through their royalties. I published the books more for fun and to be helpful than to make a huge amount of money. They’re therefore priced fairly low to make them more affordable, so each book sale earns about $3.25 on average. The majority of the sales come from paperbacks; the Kindle versions are priced at $2.99 so only earn ~$2.10.
The 501 Would You Rather Questions book has become more and more popular over the last year or so. I can’t view the royalty report at the moment, but I think total book sales contributed ~$3,000 to our income during 2018.
4) Frequent Miler
Since January 2018, I’ve written part-time for Frequent Miler, a blog I’d been following for a few years before that. It’s one of the main ways I learned about earning and redeeming hotel points and airline miles, so it’s exciting to be part of the team.
Frequent Miler Income Streams
My main source of income from Frequent Miler is through being paid (I won’t go into details of how much). There are a few other benefits, such as referral bonuses. Some of the deals we cover on the site are for services and apps that offer referral bonuses when new users sign up. There have been some deals where I’ve included my referral link, so that’s been a nice bonus at times.
n.b. Referrals tend to give a bonus to both the person doing the referring and the person being referred. It’s therefore a win-win as in many cases the person being referred wouldn’t earn a bonus if they signed up directly.
5) GC Galore
GC Galore is a site I launched a couple of weeks ago. The GC stands for Gift Cards and the site shares every discounted gift card deal I can find. GC is a common acronym with the points/miles crowd; domain names with ‘Gift Card’ or ‘Gift Cards’ in the title cost thousands of dollars, hence the GC.
I’m also creating a bunch of resources to help people with discounted gift cards. That includes articles like 25+ ways to save money on gift card purchases, 20+ beginner tips for successful gift card reselling and more.
GC Galore Income Streams
It’s still early days for GC Galore given it’s only a couple of weeks old. The plan is for it to have AdSense ads on it like my other sites. As the readership grows, I’m planning on signing up for some additional affiliate schemes. That should earn a small percentage if someone clicks through and buys something, although I’m not sure yet if gift card purchases earn a commission or only purchases of tangible products.
6) No Home Just Roam
This website you’re on is where I spend the majority of my working time. Posts often take several hours to write, especially posts like hotel reviews that require photo editing.
I try to write as comprehensively as possible about things we do so that it hopefully helps people out who want to do the same thing. For example, it seems like our post giving the locations of the Dinosaurs In The Woods in Elberta, Alabama has helped some people find the Brontosaurus based on the comments beneath that post.
With posts like our hotel reviews, I’m hoping they’re helpful given that reviews on Trip Advisor et al are usually less than 100 words. My reviews on the other hand are ~2,000 words and have tons of decent photos.
No Home Just Roam Income Streams
This site isn’t a huge moneymaker at the moment – it only earns a couple of bucks a day from AdSense. That ad revenue should increase over time as we gain more readers. We have a few links to products on Amazon – mainly when writing travel product reviews – but that doesn’t earn much.
Many travel bloggers write sponsored posts and so earn a lot of their income that way. Many also take free trips provided by travel partners and – unsurprisingly – write glowing reviews as a result. We want all our reviews to be unbiased, so we don’t partner with any hotels, restaurants, activity companies, etc. Everything we do is either paid for with our own money or with points/miles. Here’s a more detailed explanation about why we don’t write sponsored posts.
Conclusion
As you can probably tell, being able to travel full-time required a lot of work – and still does! I spent an average of 3+ hours every single day from 2011-17 working on my side hustles in addition to working a full-time job. Even non-work time like walking our dog Truffles three times a day involved coming up with riddle ideas, listening to podcasts like Smart Passive Income, etc.
That hard work has paid off though. By creating multiple income streams that are all online, Shae and I can live anywhere we want, hence this 5 year road trip.
Again, I’m not trying to show off. Instead, I’m hoping this post sparks some ideas for how you can earn some additional income. As more and more people are discovering, side hustles can help you earn additional income to fulfill your dreams, whether those are travel-related or not.
Clare Koens says
Thanks for writing this – it answered many of the questions I’ve been wondering about 🙂 I enjoyed visiting some of your other sites too.
stephen says
Thank you!
John Clark says
I enjoyed taking the two of you through a historic house in Columbia, South Carolina when you began your trip one year ago, and I have enjoyed following your progress over the past twelve months. I was also pleased to be talking with someone from Woking, England, where I spent a pleasant day a decade ago. When you were in Columbia, my book, Capitol Steps and Missteps; The Wild, Improbable Ride of Congressman John Jenrette, was still fresh off the press and selling well, both online and through direct sales. Your blog is giving me some new ideas about promotion. I am also completing a deal for former Congressman Jenrette and I to donate papers and memorabilia to the University of South Carolina Political Collections Library. Best wishes for continued fun and success in your adventure.
stephen says
We loved meeting you too – hope you find even more successful ways to promote your book 🙂
John Clark says
Folks interested in more information about South Carolina, the first state you visited, might want to take a look at Scenic Driving South Carolina, by John Clark and Patricia Pierce and available on amazon.com.
Terri says
Thank you for sharing the details. I am glad to learn about GC Galore, being an MSer from years ago, thanks~!
Is there any way to receive updates from the site? I just checked but did not see a sign up feature?
Thanks again- a faithful reader!
stephen says
Thanks for checking out GC Galore! I’ve been going back and forth as to how to set up updates from the site.
There are some days where there’s a flood of new gift card deals. In many cases, I try to create individual posts for the, but that would mean people getting multiple emails and so I don’t want it to seem like I’m inundating them with a million updates.
An alternative would be to send out a daily update in the afternoon with all deals so far that day. That has the benefit of not being as obtrusive, but it could mean some of the better deals die before the email is sent.
I’m therefore wondering if it’s worth offering both options, but I don’t know if that’ll confuse things. Do you have a preference for how you’d like to receive updates?
Terri Clark says
Thanks for sharing this! I knew you wrote for Frequent Miler and had assumed Google Ad Sense were a couple of income streams. I didn’t know about the ability to self publish on Amazon, that’s interesting. Happy travels to you two (well, three) in 2019!
stephen says
Thanks!